Amazon.com Announces the Most Well-Read Cities in America

SEATTLE, Washington —To kick off the summer reading season, Amazon.com today announced its fourth annual list of the Most Well-Read Cities in America. The ranking was determined by compiling sales data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales in both print and Kindle format from April 2013 to April 2014, on a per capita basis in cities with more than 100,000 residents. The Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities are:

1. Alexandria, Va.

2. Miami, Fla.

3. Knoxville, Tenn.

4. Seattle, Wash.

5. Orlando, Fla.

6. Ann Arbor, Mich.

7. Berkeley, Calif.

8. Cambridge, Mass.

9. Cincinnati, Ohio

10. Columbia, S.C.

11. St. Louis, Mo.

12. Pittsburgh, Penn.

13. Vancouver, Wash.

14. Salt Lake City, Utah

15. Atlanta, Ga.

16. Gainesville, Fla.

17. Dayton, Ohio

18. Clearwater, Fla.

19. Richmond, Va.

20. Tallahassee, Fla.

In taking a closer look at the data, Amazon also found that:

Inferno by Dan Brown was the best-selling book overall in Alexandria, Va., followed by Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Divergent was the most-read book by Goodreads users in Alexandria. While Alexandria, Va. bought the most books overall, Cambridge, Mass. bought the most print books, and Knoxville, Tenn. purchased the most Kindle books. Seattle, Wash.—home to Amazon.com’s corporate headquarters—made the biggest gain this year, jumping from the #13 spot in 2013 to #4. Cambridge, Mass. continues to grow more budding entrepreneurs than any other city, ordering the most books in the Business & Investing category. Top titles include Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and perennial best seller StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. Looking only at cities with more than 1 million residents, San Diego, Calif. is the most well-read.

“Our annual Most Well-Read Cities list shows that reading continues to be a passion for people from coast to coast,” said Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Print and Kindle Books at Amazon.com. “This weekend marks the start of the summer reading season, so we hope customers find a great book to enjoy and help contribute to their city’s well-read status.”

Customers can visit the Amazon Book Editors’ Summer Reading feature at www.amazon.com/summerreading, where they’ll find picks in more than 15 categories including Blockbusters and Beach Reads.

About Amazon.com

Amazon opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by three principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire, and Fire TV are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.